New Zealanders Are Embracing Social Media Sites

NEW ZEALANDERS ARE EMBRACING
SOCIAL MEDIA SITES Auckland, New
Zealand (Wednesday 5 December 2012) – Latest
figures from Nielsen, a leading global provider of
information and insights, show more than 2.8 million New
Zealanders (aged 2+) visited social media sites in the month
of October.

New Zealanders enjoy interacting with
peers, other consumers and brands on social media sites
where they spent an average of nearly eight hours each on
social media during the month, the equivalent of a full
working day.

Facebook is the top ranking social
media website in New Zealand with a unique audience of over
2.7 million people who visited the site. With 80 percent of
the online New Zealand population visiting the Facebook
site, New Zealand has the highest proportion of the online
population who visit the social networking site in
comparison to Australia (74%), the US (69%) and the UK
(68%).

Blogger is the next highest ranked site with
a monthly unique audience of 803,000, while Twitter, Tumblr
and WordPress had a unique audience of 431,000, 428,000 and
394,000 respectively. The remaining top 10 social media
sites are Google+ (365,000), LinkedIn (309,000), Wikia
(218,000), Squidoo (192,000) and Pinterest (187,000). (see
chart)

The use of social media platforms is not
mutually exclusive and of the 2.7 million Facebook users, 29
percent also used Blogger, 15 percent used Twitter as well
as Tumblr, Google+ (13%) and LinkedIn (11%).

Most
New Zealanders are accessing social media sites via their
computer (96%) and over a quarter are using their smartphone
(27%). Tablets are used to access the sites by seven percent
of social media users.

Using social media to keep
in contact with family and friends are the top reasons for
participation. In addition, 47 percent of the online
population engage social media at least once per month to
learn more about brands, products and services and 42
percent to hear about others’ positive or negative
consumer experiences.

Tony Boyte, Associate Director
of Research, Nielsen NZ said: ‘Consumer decisions and
behaviours are increasingly driven by opinions, tastes and
preferences published on social media sites. The good news
is that brands can now listen to conversations taking place
thereby putting them in a much better position to understand
and meet customer requirements in the future.’

Rank

Name

UniqueAudience(000)

Population Reach
(%)(all people
aged 2+)

Active Reach (%)(all people online aged
2+)

Time
spent per person

1

Facebook

2,710

63

80

7h
43m
38s

2

Blogger

803

19

24

7m
50s

3

Twitter

431

10

13

23m
27s

4

Tumblr

428

10

13

52m
39s

5

WordPress

394

9

12

12m
39s

6

Google+

365

9

11

4m
31s

7

LinkedIn

309

7

9

23m
5s

8

Wikia

218

5

6

20m
23s

9

Squidoo

192

5

6

1m
56s

10

Pinterest

187

4

6

9m
56s

About Nielsen Online
Ratings Nielsen Online Ratings tracks online
usage and deliver monthly reporting on people-centric
audience metrics, demographic information and detailed site
analytics. A hybrid methodology is used which combines the
benefits of a representative metered panel (covering
demographics and reach) with tagging data (providing
accurate measurement of activity). The panel has
approximately 3,000 individuals recruited online and is
weighted to match the New Zealand internet
population.About
NielsenNielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a
global information and measurement company with leading
market positions in marketing and consumer information,
television and other media measurement, online intelligence,
mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties.
Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with
headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands.
For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

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